Google Maps Lost Record Recovery Tip

Google’s Maps Guide Tom, who first announced the problemÂ (late Feb) with missing records in Maps and the subsequent fixÂ (late April) has noted a work around for any records still not showing up in Map’s as a result of the problem:

I know that there are reports that some listings aren’t appearing on
Google Maps, even though they have an “active” status and have been
verified with a PIN.

If you’re still experiencing this problem, I have a workaround that
may help get your listing to appear!

First, search for your listing to ensure it’s really not appearing:
1. Go to maps.google.com and click “Find businesses” under the searchÂ box.
2. Enter the name of your business as it appears in your LocalÂ Business Center Account in the “What” field, and then the city/stateÂ combination or zip/postal code in the “Where” field.
3. Hit “Search Businesses”.

1. Log in to your Local Business Center account at www.google.com/local/add
2. Click “Edit” next to the listing that isn’t appearing.
3. Without changing any business information, click “Finish”. You
won’t need to re-verify your listing.
4. Wait 24 hours, and then check to see if your business listing is
appearing using the steps above.

This should cause some business listings that aren’t showing toÂ finally appear.

For the successful creation of business listings, please, pleaseÂ remember these two points:

1. This workaround should only be for listings that aren’t appearingÂ but HAVE ALREADY BEEN VERIFIED and whose status is “Active” in theÂ Local Business Center. Please don’t try this if you haven’t yetÂ verified your listing.

2. Don’t include non-address information in either the “Address LineÂ 1” or “Address Line 2” of your listing. Including such informationÂ will create a problem with the listing and Google Maps’ algorithmÂ won’t be able to place it, even if it appears as a correct location
within your account.

Hopefully, this should clear up most issues about business listingsÂ disappearing. If you’ve performed the workaround and your listingÂ still isn’t appearing, please let us know.

Best,
Maps Guide Tom

Maps Guide Tom’s advice to first find your record seems self evident but it is not uncommon for posters in the Maps For Business Groups to not really be sure if their record is in the Map’s index or not. This reflects both a user education issue AND an interface problem on Google’s part. A simple solution in the LBC would be to instead of noting that the record is “Active” offer a choice to actually “View” the record in the index so users of the LBC would be confident that it is actually there. It would obviate the need for the record holders to know how to query maps and it would reduce the frequency of one of the most common questions in the support Group.

It is intriguing to me that it is still necessary for a user to need to individually enter their LBC record and flag it so that Google knows to reindex it. Reminds me of the days of dBase/Foxbase and having toÂ spend theÂ better part of a day reindexing when a computer crashed before you could get back to business. Hmmm, the more things change…

Please consider leaving a comment as your input will help me (& everyone else) better understand and learn about local.

2 thoughts on “Google Maps Lost Record Recovery Tip”

I’ve been finding that I need to do this for many many listings as they tend to get ” dropped” from Google. The appeared correct for a point in time then fall back into an older version. I go in to do a ” edit” and just click finish and voila it is back up and running.

I need to agree that there seems to be much onus on the user to ensure that Google has done their part and not only that – we need to QA the work that we have given them to do.
I’ve noticed MAJOR errors in the bulk uploads that I’ve submitted recently. I’ve check and recheck and re rechecked my spreadsheets and the information was submitted but not showing on Google properly.

I guess it’s another item that we need to put on our check list of things to do when uploading to Google Maps.